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National Referendum on the European Union

Not at this moment, if my hon. Friend will allow me. There is a third route and we are already partly along that way—that is, an à la carte Europe, where each member state decides what degree of integration it is prepared to accept in view of its own national history, rather like France being a semi-detached member of NATO for three years because it believed it to be in the French interest, and NATO did not collapse as a consequence. I say that we are already part of the way there, because at present, of the 27 member states, only 17 are members of the eurozone. Ten states are not, some because they do not want to be, and some because they could not join even if they wanted to. We are not part of Schengen, nor are the Irish. The neutral countries such as Austria, Ireland, Sweden and Finland, have never been fully involved in defence co-operation because of their neutrality. The problem at present is not that there is not an element of à la carte, but that there is a fiction in the European Union that that is purely temporary. That it is a transition and that we are all going to the same destination and the debate is merely about how long it will take us to get there. No, that is not the case. What we need is a European Union that respects the rights both of those who have a legitimate desire, in terms of their own national interest, for closer integration, and those of us who do not choose to go that way. That has to be argued and negotiated, sometimes on the basis of considerable acrimony.